The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 drama film based on the novel of the same name. Cast Singing cast *Joseph Cotten - Eugene Morgan *Dolores Costello - Isabel Amberson Minafer *Anne Baxter - Lucy Morgan *Tim Holt - George Minafer *Agnes Moorehead - Fanny Minafer *Ray Collins - Jack Amberson Non-singing cast *Erskine Sanford - Roger Bronson *Richard Bennett - Major Amberson *Orson Welles - Narrator Plot The Ambersons are by far the wealthiest family in the small midwestern city of Indianapolis. It is the turn of the 20th century, and life is peaceful. Eugene Morgan as a young man courts Isabel Amberson, but she rejects him even though she loves him. Isabel instead marries Wilbur Minafer, a passionless man she does not love. They have a child, George, whom she spoils and who becomes the terror of the town. George Amberson Minafer, on break from college, returns to his home. His mother Isabel and Major Amberson, his grandfather, hold a reception in his honor. Among the guests are the widowed Eugene Morgan, now a prosperous automobile manufacturer who has just returned to town after a 20-year absence, and his daughter Lucy. George instantly takes to the beautiful and charming Lucy, but takes as quick a dislike to Eugene. George's father Wilbur dies. As Eugene's automobile plant prospers, the industrialist builds a mansion to rival the magnificence of that of Major Amberson (where his daughter and George also live). During a dinner party, George tells Eugene that he thinks "automobiles are a useless nuisance, which had no business being invented." The other family members are taken aback by his rudeness, but Eugene says that George may turn out to be right, since he knows that automobiles are going to drastically alter human civilization, for better or worse. During the evening George learns from his uncle Jack and his aunt Fanny that Isabel and Eugene were an item and is enraged when Fanny implies that Isabel loved Eugene, not George's father. Eugene courts Isabel again and decides to ask her to marry him. Sensing the developing intensity of their relationship, George takes control and rebuffs a planned visit from Eugene at the door of the Amberson mansion. Isabel's love for her son overrides her love for Eugene, so she complies with George's demands, although she knows that he is trying to separate her from Eugene. George takes Isabel on a world tour, ostensibly to get away from the "scandalous" talk in the town, but also to remove her from the possibility of a relationship with him. Before leaving for Europe, George tries to learn what Lucy is feeling, but she feigns cheerful insouciance, concealing her pain. George and Isabel travel and live in Europe for a while. After she becomes ill, they return home, where George acts as gatekeeper for the dying Isabel. Eugene comes to the house to visit, but George refuses to let him see Isabel, who is on her deathbed. Shortly after Isabel's death, her grief-stricken father Major Amberson dies, leaving nothing of his estate to his descendants. George and the other family members must fend for themselves financially. Lucy does not reconcile with George. She tells her father a story about a North American chieftain who was "pushed out on a canoe into the sea" when he became too obnoxious and overbearing, which Eugene understands to be an analogy for George. With the entire Amberson fortune depleted, George gives up his job at a law firm for higher-paying work in dangerous trades that will enable him to care for Fanny, who has descended into psychosis. The film ends with George wandering around a polluted city, confused and disoriented by the industrial society that has developed around him. Musical numbers *"The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" - Eugene, Isabel, Lucy, George, Fanny and Jack Magnificent Ambersons, The